Slovenia Below Average in Dealing with Hate Speech on Social Media

STA, 23 November - Slovenia fares below average in terms of hate speech being removed from social media in 24 hours after such a case is reported, according to findings from 14 European countries. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube removed only 24% of such cases in Slovenia, as opposed to the average of 31% for all the countries taking part.

A campaign to check the social media giants' reaction to hate speech was carried out as part of a European project to fight hate speech and fake news.

NGOs tested their reaction as the social media committed to a European Commission code to remove hate speech from their platforms in 24 hours since it was reported.

In the period from March to May, the social media were notified of more than 700 cases of hate speech, Slovenian NGO Ekvilib Institute said on Friday.

Hate speech was categorised as racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, hate towards the Roma, Muslims and migrants, and genocide denial.

Faring the worst was Twitter with 15%, followed by YouTube with 22%, while Facebook removed as many as 55% of all contentious cases.

Ekvilib said social media were more actively removing hate speech in the countries where the authorities and NGOs address this issue more seriously.

France did best, Norway the worst

France did best with 56% of all problematic content removed within 24 hours, but Ekvilib noted that in Slovenia, hate speech was only rarely prosecuted.

It also stressed that the Council of Europe had recently urged the country to intensify its fight against hate speech, especially in the public domain.

The worst results were meanwhile recorded in non-EU members, for which the EU's code does not apply: Norway (7%), Ukraine (11%), Turkey (24%) and Montenegro (30%).

The campaign was also carried in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Great Britain.

The anti-hate speech project is run by the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement from France and funded by the European Commission.

All out stories on hate speech in Slovenia can be found here